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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28118421">Free Kittens</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchkey/pseuds/churchkey'>churchkey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Band of Brothers (TV 2001)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Christmas, Did I mention the Kittens?, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kittens, M/M, Post War, farm life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:39:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28118421</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchkey/pseuds/churchkey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Christ’s sake Dick,” he said one afternoon, “I’m trying to wean these kittens and you want to talk to me about root penetration?”</p><p>“This is a working farm Lew,” Dick shot back. “We’ve still got a job to do here.”</p><p>Lew pointed to the calico kitten sitting in the kitchen scale, at the ledger spread open in front of him on the table. “What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”</p><p>-----</p><p>"Finding an abandoned animal to adopt for a pet" was the prompt; here's where that went.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Heavy Artillery Holiday Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Free Kittens</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliza_Chikatta/gifts">Eliza_Chikatta</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Heads up: this story contains some period-typical (and I guess farm-typical) attitudes toward animal welfare.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Linus and Lucy are walking down the sidewalk. Lucy’s saying, <em>‘Now look here, Linus! I’m not going to be seen walking down the street with any boy who’s holding onto a stupid blanket!’</em> So then Linus wraps his blanket around his neck and - are you listening to me?”</p><p>Dick hummed from behind the newspaper. Lew waited. After a moment, Dick folded one corner down and looked at Lew across the table. “Linus wraps the blanket around his neck.”</p><p>Lew narrowed his eyes suspiciously and then looked down at the funnies again. “So he’s wrapping the blanket around his neck. Lucy’s got her back turned and her arms crossed. She is <em>not</em> in the mood for his bullshit today, I’ll tell you that much.”</p><p>Dick huffed. “Is she ever?”</p><p>“So then Lucy turns around and Linus says <em>‘How’s that?’</em> And look what he’s done.” Lew held the paper closer for Dick to see, but again, Dick kept his eyes on his own section. “Dick look.” Lew tapped the page. “He’s tied the <em>blanket</em> into a <em>cravat!”</em></p><p>Dick paused briefly to look up at Lew and then leaned forward to read the comic for himself. The corners of his mouth lifted in a subtle but genuine grin, and then he sat back and his face faded once again to the expression of melancholy reserve he’d been wearing more often than not lately. It was just the season for it. The weeks after harvest always filled him with a vague sense of anxiety, a restless longing for something to do. The margins of his days had just begun to bleed together, one indistinguishable from the next, and when he imagined the months ahead, all he could see was an endless book of cold, dark hours, empty pages to fill with all the tedious little jobs that were always pushed to the side in the thrilling commotion of the growing season.</p><p>After more than ten years together, Lew of course knew this about Dick, and had become, in his own humble opinion, very good at cheering him up when that look of far-off sorrow dulled the silver shine of his pale eyes. He understood. He felt it too sometimes, that fear of being stuck in one place while everything around them changed, sped up, passed them by. The key was to find something special about each day, something to make it different from the one before. Something to remind them that they were not dusty, old relics the world had largely forgotten now, but healthy, capable men still in the prime of their lives, with much to look forward to.</p><p>And that was why Lew read the Peanuts comic strip aloud to Dick every morning over breakfast. It was why he’d bought them each a pair of cross country skis on sale at the end of last winter, why he’d signed them up for horticulture classes through the extension office. It was why, on the last hot weekend of the autumn, he’d kidnapped Dick from the church door and driven him to a deserted cove on the other side of the lake unknown even to most of the locals, where they’d stripped off all their clothes and swam in the silky, tepid water one last time before the leaves fell, spinning each other in a dreamy, weightless dance, Lew blinking through his stuck-together lashes and his hands moving under the water and Dick’s long legs wrapped around his waist.</p><p>It was also why he’d begun feeding the stray cat who’d started lurking around the barn just after they’d gotten the harvest in. He’d thought he might tame her, turn her into a house cat and not have to worry anymore about the dog getting her paw caught in a mouse trap. But Sandy, as Dick had unimaginatively christened her on account of the tawny color of her fur, had shown little interest in becoming an indoor cat and only came to the house to leave eviscerated tokens of her gratitude on the back steps for them to discover when they went out to get the milk. The rest of the time, she stuck to the barn.</p><p>Lew turned to look out the window across the lawn. The stiff grass glittered with frost, but he knew it wouldn’t last long in the golden October sunshine. He thought he saw a furry yellow smudge dart through the shadow of the barn, but it could have just been a trick of the morning light.</p><p>“Did you feed Sandy yet?”</p><p>“No.” Dick lifted his cereal bowl to his lips and tipped his head back to drink the last of the milk. He set the empty bowl on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But I did clean a dead gopher off the steps.”</p><p>Lew winced. “Jesus.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Dick sat up straight, bowing out his chest and stretching his shoulders over the back of his chair. “So don’t take it personally if she’s not hungry this morning.”</p><p>But despite the breakfast of gopher viscera, Sandy ate up all of the scraps Lew had saved from last night’s supper, and a scoop of dry cat food besides. She needed the energy. Winter was coming, and she had a much bigger surprise in store for them than mutilated vermin.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A week later, they were pulling all the heavy equipment out of the machine shed to give the building a thorough cleaning before closing it up for the winter when Dick realized he hadn’t seen the dog in hours. Unless they were out in the fields, she usually tagged along wherever they went, keeping a bead on at least one of them at all times. From the height of the tractor seat, he could see far in every direction, and he turned his head in a careful sweep of the bare fields and the wide yard and the house beyond looking for a blur of russet fur,  but couldn’t find any.</p><p>“You seen Teddy?”</p><p>Lew was standing up by the heavy sliding door of the shed, his hands in their leather work gloves hooked over the handle of a push broom. He shrugged.</p><p>“She was in the barn this morning.”</p><p>Dick stood with his hands on his hips, looking in the direction of the barn. Something about it didn’t feel right. Of the two of them, Lew was without a doubt the dad to whom Teddy was the most attached, but Dick was always the first to sense when she wasn’t feeling well, whether she just needed a little extra love or if it was time to call the vet’s office.</p><p>“What?” Lew asked. “You think she’s sick or something?”</p><p>“Don’t know.” Dick’s voice was worried and pensive. He looked back at Lew. “I’m just gonna go check quick.”</p><p>“Yeah, okay,” Lew called after him. “I’ll just take care of this by myself, then.”</p><p>But Dick heard the apprehension in his voice, in the harsh scrape of bristles across the cement pad of the shed.</p><p>He whistled, the sound piercing the dim shadows of the barn. “Teddy? You in here, girl?” He heard a whine, and then saw the wag of her tail breaking the shaft of sunlight streaming through the open doors. She was back in the corner where they stored some old family furniture they didn’t want in the house but didn’t have the heart to get rid of, standing motionless and staring at something on the floor. Dick walked up to her and stroked the top of her head.</p><p>“What’d you find, girl?” he asked, thinking maybe she’d cornered a bird. An injured rabbit, perhaps. But it wasn’t a bird or a rabbit.</p><p>“Holy shit.”</p><p>“Holy shit what?”</p><p>Dick turned to see Lew blocking the light of the open doorway, still too shocked to make sense of what he’d seen.</p><p>“It’s nothing.”</p><p>Lew walked across the gravel floor to stand next to him. His head dropped forward and his eyes went wide as he took in the sight of Sandy, stretched out on her side on a pile of old seed bags with several tiny, mewling kittens nestled in the cloud of her fur.</p><p>“Nothing?” Lew gaped at Dick. “Holy shit!”</p><p>“Yeah, I don’t -” Dick mumbled stolidly. “I don’t know why I said that.”</p><p>They stood there staring in quiet wonder for a few moments, and then Lew slowly lowered to a squat beside Teddy to get a closer look. “Their eyes aren’t even open.”</p><p>Dick knelt down next to him and tried to count the kittens. “Five?”</p><p>“I count six.”</p><p>Dick took another look, counted again. Lew was right. Six kittens, born in their barn to the stray tabby who’d just taken up with them one day, seemingly out of the blue. But now it made sense. Lew rose to all fours and crept a little closer.</p><p>“Don’t touch them.”</p><p>Lew looked over his shoulder and scowled at Dick. “I know that.”</p><p>Minutes rolled by like a snowball, growing to a quarter of an hour, then a half-hour. The light changed as the sun crept higher in the sky. Teddy looked to them for direction, breaking the vigil now and again with an agitated yelp at the strange sight before her. And they just watched, transfixed by the tiny mouths, the slicked-back ears, the desperate, squeaky cries for the teat.</p><p>“Should we call the vet?” Lew asked.</p><p>“Doc Bovee?” Dick replied in confusion, naming the large animal vet their neighbors called when they had a problem with their dairy cows.</p><p>“No. The town vet.” And then, as if Dick still didn’t understand, he added, “where Teddy goes.”</p><p>Dick blinked and furrowed his brow. “That’s for pets. Not wild farm cats.”</p><p>“Wild farm <em>kittens</em>,” Lew corrected, his tone making it obvious that he didn’t believe that and neither did Dick. “You think they’re warm enough?”</p><p>Dick sighed. He was worried about that himself. It was supposed to freeze again tonight, and though they’d plugged most of the larger gaps between the boards, it was still a barn.</p><p>“I’ll close the doors. That should keep most of the heat inside.”</p><p>“You don’t think we should -”</p><p>“No,” Dick said emphatically, and then softened. “I think Sandy knows what she’s doing.” He reached a tentative hand out to scratch between the cat’s ears. She closed her eyes and purred, leaning into his touch. “Let’s just give the girl some privacy.”</p><p>He stood and took a few backward steps in the direction of the door, as though he didn’t want to take his leave all at once. Lew stayed put.</p><p>“Come on, Lew.”</p><p>After another minute, Lew dragged himself away too, snapping his fingers for Teddy to follow. Dick shut the barn doors tight behind them and they went back to their work, taking it double-time to make the most of the few hours of daylight that still remained. They didn’t say much to each other when they worked like this; they didn’t need to. When they both trained the power of their concentration on the same shared goal, they found a language deeper than than words. And for the first time since harvest, Dick wasn’t thinking about snow or frigid howling nights or the hopeless dead of winter, when it would feel like they were the only two people left alive on the planet. All that was on his mind were the sweet cries of those blind little babies, tucked safely in the cradle of their mother’s warm fur.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Looking back on it, Dick should have known that he was in trouble by the way Lew kept getting up every two hours to switch out the hot water bottles.</p><p>“Still alive?” he’d mumble when Lew came back to bed.</p><p>“I think they’ll make it through the night,” Lew would reply. “But we need to come up with a plan. This isn’t sustainable.”</p><p>And then he’d lay on his back thinking out loud about space heaters and electric blankets while Dick fell quietly back to sleep.</p><p>Throughout the next few weeks, at virtually any time of the day, Lew could usually be found in the barn. At first his main concern was whether Sandy was getting enough to eat. The kittens had grown fast, nearly doubling in size by the end of the first week, and Lew was certain it was going to take more than table scraps to keep up with all that nursing. So he’d gone to town and bought a grocery basket’s worth of canned food, the expensive stuff, and lovingly mashed it up with some milk in a little saucer for her.</p><p>After that he started worrying about the housing situation. Once the kittens had opened their eyes, Sandy had taken to moving them to different spots around the barn. Lew would gather them up and bring them back to the nest, but she’d just hide them all over again. He found one curled up behind a stack of empty nail kegs, another in the engine bay of the riding lawn mower. On top of the safety and sanitation issues this posed was the inescapable fact that the days were getting shorter and the barn wasn’t heated; it wasn’t even insulated. Whether Sandy liked it or not, bringing the whole family inside the house seemed inevitable to Lew. It was just the decent thing to do. It was humane.</p><p>But Dick only scoffed when Lew tried to explain this to him.</p><p>“They’re not coming inside.” He set one of the two calicos back into the soda crate Lew had knocked the bottle dividers out of to make a sturdy bed for Sandy and the kittens. “Not unless you want us all to get parasites.”</p><p>“They don’t have parasites,” Lew said, his voice honey-sweet as he rubbed his nose back and forth under the chin of the gray one.</p><p>“Of course they do. They’re born with them.” Dick picked up the black one and held it in front of his face like a puppet. “My belly is full of worms,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “And I want to share them with you.”</p><p>The next day, when Lew hauled the weekly load of grain to the elevator, he came home with a tiny syringe and a bottle of dewormer. Dick rolled his eyes but held the kittens in his steady, gentle hands while Lew squirted the medicine down their little throats.</p><p>But with or without intestinal worms, the kittens would stay in the barn until they were ready to adopt out, which Dick had decided could start as soon as they were weaned. Lew disagreed. He thought they ought to let nature take its course and allow the kittens themselves to make up their own minds about where they wanted to live, and that was when Dick realized that if it were up to Lew, they’d keep all seven, and pretty soon the farm would be overrun by feral cats. So he stepped up his game.</p><p>“We could do that,” Dick said. “And then when they get run over, you can be the one to scrape their little corpses off the road.”</p><p>Lew just stared at him like he’d grown a second head and then started bundling the kittens under the flap of his jacket.</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>“You’re right,” Lew said. “They’re not safe out here.”</p><p>“No.” Dick held his arm in front of the crate, blocking Lew from picking up the rest of the kittens. “They won’t wander very far while they’re still nursing. Leave them be.”</p><p>Lew sat back on his heels. Two kittens clung by their sharp little claws to the front of his shirt. Reluctantly, he peeled them off and set them back next to their mother. But if Dick thought he’d won that round, he was soundly disabused of that notion a few days later, when he went out to the barn to give Sandy her breakfast and discovered that she was gone.</p><p>“What the hell do we do?” Lew asked, frantic, as he looked at all that empty space in the crate, at all those little heads now looking to him for succor and sanctuary.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Dick said. “I won’t tell you what my dad would have done.”</p><p>Lew looked at him with an expression of horror on his face and then stepped protectively closer to the kittens. “I can't believe you,” he said. “We’re all they have in the world and you want to just let them die.”</p><p>“I didn’t say we should <em>let</em> them die.”</p><p>Lew stared at him a moment and then turned his head away in disgust, and even Dick would admit he’d gone too far that time. Overplayed his hand. He needed to step back and remember the long game; whether it took six weeks or sixteen, all that mattered was getting the cats out of his barn and finally getting some decent work out of Lew.</p><p>But any hope of that he’d developed as the kittens had grown and become more independent was quickly dashed after Lew moved them inside the house and personally took on the responsibility of switching them to solid food. For a while it seemed like all he did, round the clock, was hand-feed little bits of wet kitten food he’d bought at the vet’s office to one cat after another, rubbing their tiny jaws as he tried to teach them how to chew and swallow. When he wasn’t feeding them, he was hovering over them in the litter box, or cleaning their bedding, or weighing them in the kitchen scale, recording everything in the blank pages at the end of last year’s crop ledger.</p><p>Dick tried his best to carry on as usual, but it was pretty much pointless. Lew hated to leave “the orphans”, as he’d started calling them, alone for more than an hour, and even with the work they could do inside at the kitchen table, the book-balancing and planning for next season, Lew was only good for about half of his normal level of attention, constantly distracted by the much more important task at hand.</p><p>“Christ’s sake Dick,” he said one afternoon, “I’m trying to wean these kittens and you want to talk to me about root penetration?”</p><p>“This is a working farm Lew,” Dick shot back. “We’ve still got a job to do here.”</p><p>Lew pointed to the calico kitten sitting in the kitchen scale, at the ledger spread open in front of him on the table. “What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”</p><p>Dick laughed. “You want me to answer that honestly?”</p><p>Lew scowled at him. “I thought you wanted to find homes for them.”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>“Well no one’s going to want a sickly, feeble kitten, and if we don’t keep track of this stuff that’s what they’re going to be.” He turned the ledger so Dick could read it. “See? How else would we know that Ingrid’s not putting on weight as quickly as the others?”</p><p>“Ingrid?”</p><p>Lew gestured to the kitten in the scale. “Ingrid! You don’t even know their names.”</p><p>“Sure I do.” Dick pointed at the crate on the floor. “That’s Blackie, Smokey, Stripes.” He pointed at the other two kittens batting their paws in the water dish. “Spotty. Bootsie.” He picked up the calico kitten out of the scale and held it close to his chest. “And this is Spotty Two.”</p><p>“Oh my god,” Lew mumbled, shaking his head. “You are so bad at this.”</p><p>“Aw, that’s not true,” Dick said in a syrupy, baby voice. “Spotty Two doesn’t think so.”</p><p>Lew sighed. “Her name is Ingrid. Her twin over there is Myrna.” He pointed slowly to the rest of the kittens. “Judy. Gloria. Lana. And this.” He leaned down and picked up the white-pawed black kitten Dick had called Bootsie.</p><p>“This is Elizabeth Taylor. You know why I named her that?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Dick said dryly. “Does she like horses?”</p><p>“Her eyes.” Lew held the kitten out so Dick could see her blue eyes. “Aren’t they something?”</p><p>Dick looked around his kitchen at the wild kittens Lew had named for starlets, at the one gnawing on Lew’s thumb as he held her tenderly in his palm, and down at Ingrid Bergman in his own hand, feeling the sandpaper drag of her tongue over his knuckle.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said. “They’re something, alright.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Lew had managed to hold Dick off on getting rid of the kittens for a few weeks after Sandy had fucked off so summarily, probably out of sympathy for their pitiful and uncertain plight. One need look no further than their own relationship for evidence that Dick had always had a soft spot for abandoned creatures. But by the time they got their first snow, the weekend after Thanksgiving, Lew could tell that the little waifs were beginning to wear out their welcome.</p><p>Gone were the evenings they’d lay on the living room rug playing with the kittens for hours, letting them climb up and down the summit of their bodies until the clamor in their stomachs reminded them that they’d forgotten to eat supper. Gone too were the mornings when Dick would walk through the kitchen clapping his hands and barking orders at the kittens like they were a little platoon of fresh recruits, <em>“At attention, Private Garland!” “What is so funny, Private Turner? You’ve about laughed your way into another month of litter box detail!”</em></p><p>Now he mostly just dropped obvious hints about neighbors who’d said they could really use a good mouser or that the newspaper was running a sale on classified ads, two letters for the price of one. According to the vet, they were probably healthy enough to start handing off any day now, but Lew wanted to wait a little longer. He couldn’t help but feel a little responsible for them, suspecting that Sandy had noticed how attentive he’d been in the barn and pegged him for the sucker he was, and he was determined to do right by these kittens if it killed him. And after six weeks of devoting to them a portion of worry and care rivaling that showered on actual human babies, having to watch them leave him in the arms of a stranger would come pretty damn close.</p><p>Myrna Loy was the first to go. Dick hadn’t even asked him first. One minute Lew was enjoying his usual Sunday afternoon bullshitting with Harry and the next Dick was reaching for the phone, asking Harry to put his daughter on.</p><p>“Hey Bridget, it’s Uncle Dick,” Lew heard him say, his suspicion roused by the tinge of mischief in his voice. “How’s school? You being nice to your brothers?” Dick chuckled and winked at Lew, as though they were in on some joke together. “Say Bridget, I got a question for you. How would you like… ” He paused for effect. “... a kitten for Christmas?” Even across the room, Lew could hear her screaming through the receiver.</p><p>“Any color you want,” Dick said. “We’ve got a gray one and a real pretty tabby and one that’s black all over and one that’s black with white -”</p><p>Lew stood suddenly and shook his head, making a slashing motion across his neck and mouthing <em>“No, not Liz”.</em></p><p>“And you know what else we’ve got?” Dick asked, quickly changing gears. “Twins. Two calicos.” He packed as much awe and wonder in the words as he could. “They’re pretty much every color. You can have both of them if you want. If your dad says it’s alright.”</p><p>“Two kittens, Lewis?” Harry said once Dick had passed the phone back to Lew.</p><p>“Sorry, Harry.” Lew glared at Dick. “Wasn’t my idea.”</p><p>“We’re not taking two,” Harry said. “One is plenty.”</p><p>From the satisfied smile on Dick’s face, Lew was sure that had been his intention all along. Harry and the kids made the two-hour drive the following weekend, and try as he might, Dick couldn’t convince him that the boys each needed their very own kittens too.</p><p>So that left five by the time the church Christmas program rolled around, which was Dick’s next brilliant plan for getting rid of them. He was in a good mood all day long, whistling Christmas tunes as he cleared the snow from the driveway and chipped the ice dams off the gutters. After lunch, Lew found him in the barn with an old milk crate in his lap and a paintbrush in his hand.</p><p>Lew dropped an armful of firewood onto the drying pile. “What’s all this?”</p><p>“Hang on.” Dick swept the brush across the crate one more time and then turned it around. “What do you think?”</p><p>In bold, black letters across the front, he’d painted the words <em>FREE KITTENS</em> and underneath that, a little smaller, <em>NO WORMS.</em></p><p>Lew’s heart dropped into his feet. “Wow. That’s concise.”</p><p>Dick smiled. “Too bad we don’t have any green or red, make it festive.”</p><p>“More festive than 'no worms'?”</p><p>Dick glanced briefly in Lew’s direction but it was clear that nothing could dampen his present enthusiasm. “Hey, I was thinking we should pick up some ribbon. We could tie it around their necks, make them look like little presents.”</p><p>Lew had to swallow back a pained whimper at that. “They’d just eat it.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Dick said. “You’re probably right.”</p><p>The rest of the afternoon was a blur of staying busy so he didn’t have to think about coming home to an empty crate by the radiator, a blanket he’d have to wash and then pack away with the other old rags. He’d planned to let Dick go on ahead of him and bring the kittens at the end of the program, but then Dick informed him that he’d volunteered them to put up the risers for the kids to stand on as they bleated out their off-key renditions of ‘Away in a Manger’ and ‘Oh Little Town of Bethlehem’, and he wound up going to the church an hour early. He left the kittens in the sacristy during the program, and above the ghastly voices of the children, he could’ve sworn he heard them mewling for him.</p><p>Afterwards, he carried the crate to the table Dick had set up in the fellowship room and handed it to him without a word.</p><p>“Don’t you want to say goodbye?”</p><p>Lew shook his head. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. If he so much as looked at them, he worried he’d break down in tears.</p><p>“Here.” Dick held out a paper bag. “They had extras.”</p><p>Lew looked inside and found the same orange and roasted peanuts in the shell and Christmas candy that they always passed out to the kids after the program.</p><p>“Thanks,” he said bitterly. “I’ll wait in the car.”</p><p>By the time he saw Dick appear in the crack of light between the heavy church doors, Lew had eaten all of the peanuts and was halfway through the Christmas candy, grinding it spitefully to a sticky powder between his teeth. A cold draft swept through the car as Dick opened the back door to set the empty crate on the seat.</p><p>“Well?” Lew looked down at his hands, brushing the peanut dust from his fingers. “Are they gone?”</p><p>“Just about.”</p><p>Dick didn’t say anything more, just sat there for a moment with one hand tucked inside the flap of his coat. Lew turned his head and his face broke into a beaming, euphoric grin. In his hand, Dick held the black kitten with white feet and bright blue eyes.</p><p>“Merry Christmas, honey.”</p><p>“Elizabeth Taylor!” Lew’s voice was full of the awe and wonder of a child as he reached for her and kissed the top of her soft little head. He looked back at Dick and the joy in his face melted into a warm, enduring smile.</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>Dick just gave him a little nod and shifted into reverse. Lew turned his attention back to the kitten clinging to his shirt.</p><p>“When we get home, you’re going to catch such a big mouse for Daddy,” he said in a sweet, drippy voice. “And then he’s going to regret that he ever even thought about drowning you.”</p><p>“Never gonna let me forget that, are you?”</p><p>Lew held Elizabeth up in front of his face, turning her around to get a look at her shiny coat. “No,” he said. “I don’t think we will.”</p><p>As he watched the lights of town fade to the vast darkness of the country night sky, Lew felt a wave of peace and goodwill rise inside of him, the gentle thrumming of a universal vibration connecting him to all living things, like strings plucked on some cosmic harp, and, more comforting by far, the sharp points of tiny claws sinking into the tender flesh of his belly.</p>
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